Hello Allison,
Nellie's mother Georgina left Tasmania after her husband Frank
Hopton died in a shooting accident (1901). She took her son
Archie with her. It looks like she met up with Hugh
O'donoghue (a married man-supposedly) and they had two children together Nellie and Charles. I think they split up about 1908ish, from the little we can piece together, mainly from the war records, Hugh
O'donoghue then had another child by a Miss
Wilson. That little boy had some sort of deformity and died at about 6 years old. I think Nellie fibbed about her age and called herself Ellen, that is why it looks like Georgina had three children. I guess I'd like to know - a What happened to
Archie in his early years, was he put in an orphanage as we were told Nellie was? I've checked with
McKillop family services and they have no records of Nellie. -b I'd like to find out about the O'Donoghues as they are my ancestors and not the Hoptons as I've always believed. I hoped that by putting something on Rootsweb, maybe Hugh's relatives may be doing the same thing. I've just (last week) made contact with Archies great grandson Russell. I believe Hugh's first wife was called Mrs White,and they may have had a child, maybe she remarried or going on Hugh's form she pretended to be married? Russell
Hopton put me onto a website where I discovered that Nellie's ancestors were convicts- through the Johnston's -Georgina's maiden name.
Once again thank you. Regards from Raylene